Do they call the wind Mariah or Maria?

Cafe Society
1

One of the clues in today’s (1/29) USA Today Crossword is “Name for the wind, in song.”

I confidently started typing in MARIAH, but ran out of space before I could get in the last “H”. Now, all of my life I’ve known the song from Paint Your Wagon as They Call the Wind Mariah. In fact I frequently cite the bit of trivia that Mariah Carey was named after the song.

So, I started to write a nice email to Timothy Parker, the puzzle editor, to set him straight on his error. But when I went to Google for cites to back me up, about half of them, including IMDB, show the name in the song title as Maria :eek: :eek:

Now, I could understand this if the sources were from blogs posted by people who can’t spell, but it seems like IMDB and other trusted sources should have the correct info.

So, Dopers, when you sing the song is it Mariah or Maria?

Thanks.

2

I think it’s PRONOUNCED Mariah, but spelled Maria for some unknown reason. I mean, I have the song on cd and it’s clearly MARIAH.

3

I’ve always known it as spelled Maria. You can actually pronounce Maria as Mariah, if you happen to be an upper-class Brit. Otherwise I know nothing. :slight_smile:

4

I think it’s a traditional British pronunciation. In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, there’s a character named “Maria”, and I’ve always heard it pronounced “Mariah”. Also, Maria Bertram in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park is pronounced this way (at least in the TV and movie productions I’ve seen).

5

Well, whatever we call her, she cries “Mary.”

6

…

7

Hmm it would depend on whether you were doing folio or not. If you were doing FOLIO shakespeare it would dictate which syllable requires the emphasis in order to keep the rhythm of the verse.

How do I know? I was forced to f-ing do it for a play and was a rat’s hair away from taking my own life in trying to memorize that.

8

From wikipedia on Paint Your Wagon:

9

I’ll second this, at least the 12th Night bit. Mariah is the traditional pronunciation, Maria is the traditional spelling.

10

Did anybody ever really call the wind Maria? It sounds kind of flaky.

11

When that song was part of my high school band’s repetoire, it was spelled “Maria” on the sheet music but pronounced the way “Mariah” is commonly pronounced. Even so, I’m with Freddy the Pig on this, post #10.

12

I’m a fan of the singer and so I’ve read many articles that explain the meaning of her name. The song has always been spelled “They Call The Wind Maria” in those articles as far as I can remember.

13

I call the wind Roberta, but that’s just me.

14

Are you kidding? Away out here they got a name for rain AND wind AND fire.

BTW, the rain is Tess, the fire Joe

15

In the phrase Black Maria, which can refer to phenomena as diverse as a card game and a hearse, the second word is typically pronounced to rhyme with “pariah”.

16

Well, for what it’s worth, we call the squid “Mariah”.

17

Also, I remember Lucille Ball once told a story on I Love Lucy, in which a lothari-us man and two squabbling women were taken to jail in a black maria.

18

I thought Tess was earth.
::d&r::

19

Damn, almost 53 years old and my ignorance is still being fought. Thanks!

20

As was my cousin Mariah. Fortunately, she’s old enough that people wouldn’t think that she was named after Mariah Carey.

I did a start on seeing that puzzle, too, but I figured that the answer was supposed to be MARIA. Interesting to see that it wasn’t a mistake, after all.